After a protracted search, David Kahn hired Kurt Rambis to coach the Timberwolves. Rambis brought a championship pedigree from his days on the Showtime Lakers, where he learned under Pat Riley. He had also apprenticed on the Lakers bench beside Phil Jackson. Dave Wohl, Minnesota's lead assistant, remembers arriving in Minnesota and Kahn asking him whether Rubio and Flynn could prosper playing together. Wohl described Flynn as a good, ambitious kid. He also said that Rubio and Curry would have made a better pairing. He didn't believe either Flynn or Rubio could perform at shooting guard. "He said, 'No, no. I want to play Jonny and Rubio. They remind me of [Walt] Frazier and [Earl] Monroe,'" Wohl said.

"When he said that, I didn't know what to say. I actually played during the '70s against Earl and Clyde and there's just no comparison." Wohl told Kahn that he did not think it was an accurate comparison. "He said, 'Yeah, it is. They are two guys who can handle the ball,'" Wohl recalled Kahn saying. "When he started going in that direction, I knew that Kurt was going to have a struggle in him trying to figure out what to do with both those guys when they came because Ricky was clearly a guy who was a great passer and was going to be able to do some things offensively with his passing that Jonny, at that point, wasn't able to do," Wohl said.

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